CLAN PARTY

YAKUZA KIWAMI will forever change how you look at manholes

- Matthew Elliott

If only I could write this intro like a Yakuza game. Pattering rain and neon signs reflected in puddles. Pulsating soapland ambience. And, eventually, familiar text and echoing drums to remind you what you’re reading: Bhum-bhumm. ‘Feature intro: 70 words.’ Unfortunately, for it to work, it would have to be 40 minutes long and be followed by a 10-year spell in prison for being too metatextual.

Even having played it all before, the early parts of Kiwami require serious mental investment. There are clans, friendships, romances, rivalries. All of the families have different levels of responsibility. Not all patriarchs are created equal. But this is perhaps what makes the series so compelling. It constructs the sort of tiered, interlocking crime drama that Takeshi Kitano would be pleased with. And then, almost out of nowhere, it gets weirder and weirder. Yet, somehow, it works.